The Best Intentions
by Written Parody
Summary: Sometimes, the greatest of good gets it wrong. Sometimes, the best intentions to save every person in the world end up destroying most of them instead. AU end of series. Strong hints of Zutara.
1. Prologue

**An: **Now that I've finally finished _Fragments_, I can start on another fic. This is not the non-existent multi-chapter I mentioned in one of the _Fragments _installments. This is an entirely new fic that came to me recently and that will not go away. Since I have a week before university starts and an undisclosed time before SOPA stops me from writing fanfictions I decided to get off my lazy behind and start this thing. I'm not entirely sure where it's going – I only have a vague idea in my head. All I know is that it's going to be unlike anything I've written before. It's going to push my 'If ATLA wasn't a kid's show…' muse that started in _Fragments _completely out in the open.

Because, no matter how epic ATLA and all its spin-offs and extras are, there's a strong part of me that continues to yell, "In real life, there are very rarely such conveniently placed rocks that make everything better in one flash." Sorry, Bryke.

**Warnings**: AU plot, dark themes, death, violence, OOC-ness, Zutara and what could very possibly be perceived as Aang bashing. That isn't intentional, though.

**Disclaimer**: Avatar: The Last Airbender, its plot and its characters do not belong to me. They are property of Bryan and Mike and whomever Bryke decides to give the rights to.

I love reviews more than I can ever put into words but this one is not for stroking my ego. This one is just to bleed out something different to see if I can. I beg your forgiveness and your patience.

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><p><strong>Prologue <strong>

Destiny illustrated as a path is mostly incorrect. Destiny is less of a road cutting through the fields of life and more a wild, untamable and ever winding river. Once you are born and are set into the current of destiny, you can never escape. You may try to fight it; try to swim upstream or cling to a rock or propel yourself into an adjacent stream. But your attempts will always be futile. No matter if it takes a moment or almost a lifetime, destiny will always sweep you back into its clutches and deliver you to the pool that is your purpose.

But, sometimes, even the all-knowing cannot fully charter the river of destiny. Sometimes a moment, a decision, an impulsive action, a coincidence happens and the river of destiny forks into two equally as large and powerful sub-streams. Sometimes destiny underestimates the power of love; how meeting another person can alter your soul and tie you together in a bond that threatens to dam its river up. Sometimes, the human soul floating in destiny's river finds a pull almost as strong as the current. Sometimes those almighty forces controlling destiny underestimate forces nothing can understand.

And then there are the times – so rare they can be counted easily – where destiny rages into a whirlpool the forces of the universe could not foresee or stop. Destiny continues to flow and will still arrive at the same pool, but the journey getting there will be altered, flawed, impure. Sometimes, the greatest of good gets it wrong. Sometimes, the universe miscalculates and the best intentions cause destruction that contradicts them beyond explanation.

Sometimes, the best intentions to save every person in the world end up destroying most of them instead.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One **

Katara had known the definition of 'evil' since before she could properly remember. She had grown up with red blood and black hatred painting her nightmares, had realized that forgiveness was harder than anything else in the world and had given her heart and soul firmly to the cause of stopping evil in its tracks no matter what it took.

But those resolves were being cracked and caved in by the weapon of Azula's desperate screams. Never in all her years of being hunted and hunting animals for food had the Waterbender ever heard cries so utterly devastating. They were beyond hopeless, beyond despair and beyond any humanoid sophistication. They were the sounds of a dehumanized, tortured soul and no matter how evil and blackened that soul was the cries made Katara's heart ache and her hands long to hold the princess and sing the darkness away as Kya and later Kanna had done for her.

Beneath her fingers another body stirred, seemingly breathing in every bit of strength the air could offer. Her eyes opened and carefully avoided the sight of the chained Azula, instead locking into his eyes to ground herself and her resolve. The burning points of gold were clear now, free from the clouded pain and general unfocused sheen of a dying man. The Firelord lived, and she'd never been more grateful for anything in her life.

"We should find Aang," Zuko told her quietly. "Or at least the others. They may need us."

Nodding firmly, Katara let her hand fall from Zuko's shoulder and turned with him to walk toward the palace. Neither of them looked at Azula as they passed, not because they did not care but simply because they could not bear it. Neither of them brought up the fact that they could have called Appa from the courtyard – both of them knew without having to say it that they both wanted to get away from the bittersweet victory of that courtyard before they did anything else at all. They had to step out of the black waters full of personal demons before they could become the heroes the world needed once more.

The red light given off from the emblazoned sky disappeared as they entered into the walls of the Fire Nation palace. Wordlessly, Zuko changed course to the left and Katara followed without question. The Firebender led them out into another courtyard – how many of them did the palace have? What were they there for, anyway? – that was big enough for Appa to land in. The Waterbender raised her hands to form a cup over her mouth so that her cry would travel, but as she did so she noticed her companion sag against the wall.

"Zuko?"

At once, her full attention was on him, kicking herself internally for not noticing how pale he was or how he was shaking slightly. Even as his gaze met hers and turned defiant, his hand curled subconsciously around his chest. The sight clenched Katara's insides, burning them until they shriveled and squirmed and then disappeared altogether.

"I'm sorry." Her eyes told him she meant it deeply. "I can't do anything more than I already have today…"

"You saved my life," he pointed out quietly. "That's more than enough."

"But you're hurting."

He could tell it wasn't a question, and without knowing how to answer he was left awkwardly looking somewhere else so he could avoid having that truth pinned to him alongside the dust on his shirt. Katara began to worry her lip, wishing desperately for water from the Spirit Oasis or some more experienced healers. The next best thing to healing with bending wove its way into her head.

"Bandages – do you know where I can find some? Wrapping it will help."

For another moment he hesitated, still loathe to admit that anything was wrong. But then he nodded grudgingly and slowly pushed away from the wall. "Yeah. There are some in the underground bunker. They were placed there for in case on The Day of Black Sun, and not all of them were used."

Both ignoring the accusation that statement could have held, they made their way toward another entrance to the secret underground rooms. Katara was soon lost in the maze that the palace seemed to be, but Zuko did not falter once, seeming unperturbed at how every corridor was alike. Katara tried desperately not to notice how he leant on the wall as they walked. Finally, Zuko led them out into another courtyard – she'd seriously have to ask him what on earth they were all for someday – where the ground was paved with seemingly meaningless stone patterns. The Firebender made his way to the largest of the stones and scuffed away some dirt to reveal a handle. Before he could even try and lift the trapdoor himself, Katara pounced and wrenched the thing up instead.

When Zuko stiffened beside her and stood, she thought that it was a reaction of irritated ire to her help. But when she stood too, counterargument ready on her lips, she found that her companion was staring at the sky instead of her. She whirled around and faced the horizon, wondering if she would be able to tell what was wrong in the sky that was foreign to her. She needn't have worried: anybody would have been able to see what had caught the Firelord's attention.

"What… is it?" Her voice was almost a whisper. Then she gasped and faced him so she could see the confirmation on his face. "Aang?"

Zuko nodded slowly. "It must be. I've never seen anything like it before. My f- Ozai cannot do anything like that."

Once again she turned her eyes to the horizon, drinking in the two pillars of light with fearful awe. The red and blue lines of light seemed perfectly parallel and seemed to come from the very sky itself. As soon as she'd thought that, it struck her that perhaps they were simply disappearing into the sky and not coming from it at all.

"But that's not what his Avatar State looks like…"

"Perhaps it's changed now that he knows all the elements?"

Katara frowned and shook her head. "No. It doesn't seem… No. There's something…" She couldn't find the right word to express it. The emotion was there, welling up inside her like a tidal wave, but she could not name it.

Zuko, however, found the description almost at once. "Wrong. There's something wrong."

"Yeah. Usually-"

His arm gripped her shoulder and surprised her into silence. The expression on his face – one she'd never seen before – made her heart stutter in her chest. "Katara. Get into the bunker."

"What? But-"

"Get inside!" Was that… panic? "Now!"

Without waiting for her to comply willingly, he shoved her roughly into the hole. Katara barely managed to stop herself from tumbling straight down the crude steps that led into the bunker. Suddenly furious, she launched herself up to the top step and glared up at the form of Zuko. Her angry tirade never made it out her mouth. As she inhaled to give him a piece of her mind, the earth began to rumble. It was not a normal tremor or the movements of Earthbenders. It was a deep, throbbing movement that seemed to come from the core and from the surface all at once, causing the very air to vibrate. It was the most unnatural and most terrifying thing Katara had ever encountered; her breathing hitched and the hairs stood up along her flesh at once.

The rumbling grew louder, more desperate, and Zuko suddenly turned directly toward her. "Azula."

She could never explain what made her do it – could never put a name to the instinct that made her reach up and grab Zuko's ankle as he turned to go back and save his sister. With the elements of surprise and Zuko's injury working to her advantage, the Waterbender yanked with all her strength and caused Zuko to topple to the ground like a felled tree, most of his legs dangling in the opening. Before he had a moment to do anything, Katara grabbed his waist and pulled him in, gentleness forgotten in the sudden terror that drove her on. Pushing him away from the opening – vaguely aware that she was basically pushing him down the stairs but not caring – she frantically reached up and grasped the lid of the trapdoor, pulling it over the opening with panicked haste.

Just before the outside world was blotted out, Katara caught a flash of pure, unearthly blue. And then the world seemed to explode.

With a scream she was thrown backwards, colliding with Zuko and sending both of them rolling down the short staircase before coming to halt in a tangled bundle on the bunker passage floor. The entire structure around them trembled, moaning and thrashing as though the world itself was on pain. There was a terrible wailing that sounded from outside that she would later liken to the air itself crying. Too terrified to move and completely ignorant to what was happening above, the Waterbender remained where she had fallen, curling herself into a ball in an automatic attempt at protection. Zuko stayed equally as still by her side, his harsh breath against her neck the only indication that he was still there.

After a long moment that seemed almost like a lifetime, the trembling and wailing stopped. Still the two did not move; too bewildered, confused and fearful to dare to show the spirits that they were, in fact, still alive. And then Katara slowly sat up, trying to discern which way she was looking in the complete blackness that surrounded her. The sudden light made her scream.

"Sorry," Zuko's voice apologized beside her.

Heart still hammering wildly, she gave him a weak imitation of a glare. "Don't do that."

He did not apologize again, but instead pushed himself into a sitting position, holding his left hand up slightly so the flame in his palm illuminated the hallway. Both he and Katara were scraped and dirty from their tumbles, but the pallor to his face and the way he seemed unable to sit properly or raise his hand higher than his chin told her that he'd had the worst of it. Inwardly she winced as she remembered her actions to get him inside. How could she have been so _stupid_?

"Where are the bandages?"

The look he gave her clearly stated he was questioning her sanity. "Uh… In case you've forgotten we seemingly have bigger problems."

She flat out ignored him. "Are they close?" When he did not answer she huffed, clambered to her feet and stalked off down the passage, ignoring the fact that it was pitch dark down there. "Don't move – you'll only make it worse."

"Katara!" She didn't stop. "How the hell do you expect to see them?" he barked after her, temper flaring in his exasperated state.

This time the Waterbender did slow, her teeth worrying her bottom lip at the problem that presented itself. Rolling his eyes, Zuko hauled himself to his feet using the wall as support. Katara had never seen somebody have to use that much effort to rise and it sent shards of ice piercing through her. Wincing, Zuko wrapped his free arm around his torso and slowly made his way over to her, leaning against the wall with his shoulder.

"Come on. Let's go find your Agni-damned bandages, then."

Ignoring his obvious anger – it was an emotion she'd gotten more than used to when it came to him – she wrapped her arm around his back to give him support. Then, swallowing her fear, she gently slipped the arm holding the fire around her shoulders, trying not to think about the tiny flame that was now resting inches from her face. Zuko instantly stretched his arm out further, natural instinct telling him to get his fire as far away from Katara's face as possible.

"What are you _doing_?" He wondered if she'd hit her head.

Instead of answering, Katara just swallowed. She trusted him not to burn her – really she did. But that deeper knowledge was being drowned out by the survival instincts that were screaming in her head and telling her to _get away get away get away_. Without another word she began to walk, allowing Zuko to lean on her and the wall in equal measure. It worried her greatly that he did not protest to this arrangement and that he had yet to reprimand her for injuring him more to get him inside. And yet, despite his obvious discomfort, Zuko did not falter or stop until they reached the room they needed. Inside, just like he'd said, was a shelf of neatly folded bandages. After gently dumping Zuko on a chair, Katara turned to the shelf and plucked one folded bandage from the very top of the pile.

"Stay still," she warned her companion as she returned.

As soon as he'd glowered at her words she gently pushed aside the tattered remains of his shirt. He jumped at the contact, and the motion caused him to groan out loud. In exasperation – she'd _told _him to stay still! – Katara sighed, rolled her eyes, and lamented on the stupidity of men. The wound looked terrible. But, to be honest, she'd been expecting that. Lightning may be beautiful in the sky, but on a person's flesh it was disastrous. Despite her earlier claims, Katara uncorked her water skin and attempted to heal the Firebender's wound some more. The bruising and tearing from his falls were erased with a bit of effort, but she could not heal him past the point he had been before falling down a flight of stone stairs.

Eventually, Katara had to unwillingly admit defeat and her water returned to its holder on her back. Then, with surprising cooperation from Zuko, she pulled off the tattered shirt and began to bandage his torso. Every time he flinched she jumped also, guilt and the feeling of failure washing over her and making her miserable.

"Thanks."

She started in surprise – they had both been silent for a long while and she had not expected that he would be the one to break it. But his gaze was sincere and she felt herself suddenly blushing and unable to look at him.

"It's the least I could do after…"

The sentence remained incomplete, but the unvoiced ending hung between them like a thread or a safety rope. As Zuko stood slowly, Katara returned to the shelf and scooped up all the rest of the bandages, holding them firmly to her chest with only one hand so she could still support Zuko. The Firelord raised an eyebrow at her load but did not comment, instead accepting her support and making the ever-present flame on his hand brighter so they could see further down the passage.

The closer they got to the opening, the more nervous they both became. By the time they reached the stairs, Katara's heart was thudding so loudly in her ears she could barely hear anything else. Zuko's head was still held high, but she knew for a fact he was at least a bit as frightened as she was. They climbed the stairs together and both hesitated on the second step, staring at the trapdoor right before their faces with trepidation.

"I'm going first." It was not a question.

"No you-"

"Stay here," he cut across her firmly, removing his hand from her shoulder and using it to shove open the trapdoor instead.

His body blocked out her view of the outside world, and so all she could do was watch his form with her heart almost in her mouth. Zuko climbed onto the courtyard floor, straightened up and immediately froze. The fire in his palm went out.

"Zuko? Zuko! What? What is it?"

Frantic again, Katara scrambled out of the hole and looked around her wildly, expecting to see soldiers of some sort surrounding them and grinning evilly now that their strange blue attack had smoked the two benders out. As soon as she was made aware of the reality, Katara wished she was facing an entire army instead.

With a gasping sob, the Waterbender brought a shaking hand to her lips.

The Fire Nation palace and the courtyard surrounding them had been completely demolished into a pile of rubble distinguishable only because of the red paint. Now that the structure was gone, she could see further into the capitol. The houses she managed to glimpse were demolished too; little piles of rubble where homes had towered proudly only half an hour before. The air was thick with dust – she could taste Fire Nation rubble on her tongue as she inhaled. The stones beneath her feet were cracked; split open by the unknown blue force. It was a sheer miracle the bunkers had survived the devastation.

Somewhere in the distance a woman began to wail. And, despite being in enemy territory, surrounded by the remains of enemy buildings and enemy blood, Katara knew without a doubt that they had lost the war.

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><p><strong>AN:<strong> It's almost 1 AM here. I wasn't expecting to write this tonight: I only planned to get the prologue up. But this spat itself out my fingers, so I decided to post anyway. I _know_ it's crap. It will be revised ASAP in the morning. And then chapter two shall begin.

**Edit: **Uhm… Wow. Okay. I did NOT expect so many reviews. Thanks a ton, you guys. You make me feel very warm and fuzzy inside. Hopefully I wasn't too ambiguous and you all know what the lights were and what happened. If not, never fear: I'll make it glaringly obvious in a later chapter. Or, at least, I will if I remember.


	3. Chapter Two

**AN: **Again: wow. I was only expecting about 3, maybe 4 reviews for this. You guys are amazing, really you are. Especially since all of them were full of well-wishes and love. AND especially since apparently has something funky going on with its alerts so I never got any emails telling me people had reviewed. Silly . I sincerely, sincerely hope I don't disappoint any of you. Again this is mostly just written to please myself and with university coming up really fast I don't know how frequent or how satisfying updates will be. But I can swear to you all that I'll try my best. Because I really never thought so many people would read this. I'm a little nervous now, to be honest.

But enough rambling. Here's chapter two. I got a bit distracted researching things for this chapter, because researching entailed watching some ATLA episodes. And one led to another and… You get the drift. xD HOPEFULLY that means that this is less OOC than I fear it is.

Any criticisms are welcome. The same warnings from before apply so be weary.

**Disclaimer: **ATLA does not belong to me in any way. I am not doing this for any kind of profit – just for fun.

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><p><strong>Chapter Two <strong>

Toph had been the one to really teach Katara how sound bounced off rock to magnify, echo and do all sorts of other things the Blind Bandit had smugly called 'neat tricks'. In a dazed state the Waterbender found herself listening to the wailing and trying to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. She didn't know why she was doing it; instincts had taken over and had apparently decided her mind needed to _do something_, whether it would help or not. Or perhaps she just thought that a moment as impossibly dark as the one she was in right then deserved nothing less than utter silence.

Before she could even wrap her head around the direction of the wailing it cut off – sharply and suddenly as though its maker had suddenly run out of energy, life, existence or the ability to see any sense at all in trying to put that much pain into a single, unsatisfying noise. As soon as the silence descended upon them, Katara wanted it gone.

"W…What… I don't…"

Her jumbled whispers sent a jerk through Zuko and the sight whipped her back to not an hour before when he was twitching pathetically on the ground. The memories made her arm rise, longing to reach out and touch him and make sure he was real and breathing and not destroyed like his once home that now lay at his feet. But her arm only got half way before he turned around. Gold eyes met blue briefly in a gaze that held nothing but empty shock and horror that could not be expressed. And then, without a word, Zuko strode away.

"Z…Zuko!"

Katara had to run to catch up to him and her usually graceful steps were caught mockingly on fallen debris so often that she felt as though she were continuously stumbling after the striding figure in red before her. Eventually, however, she managed to catch up and made sure she was so close they were almost touching. She was not going to lose him too. _Especially _when nothing around her made sense any more and her entire world was threatening to crumble under a single truth that whispered tauntingly in her head. She opened her mouth to ask where they were going, but her question was answered when they entered the courtyard where the Agni Kai had taken place. It, like the rest of the palace, was in ruins.

Katara stopped to look around, her eyes large and frightened like a little girl's as she took in the destruction of what had seemed indestructible mere moments before. Zuko did not stop but his steps grew slower and slower until he was almost crawling toward his destination. Katara turned in time to see him lurch to a swaying halt; the movement of a man who wanted to continue and not go another step farther all at once. Uncomprehending, she squinted over to where he stared. A thin yet steady stream of water trickled down from a pile of fallen debris that was dominated by a felled pillar. It had cracked very near the base and had remained mostly whole as it fell.

Katara suddenly felt sick right down to her stomach. The stream was coming from the underground source that she had fought over earlier. The fallen rock must have caused a blockage that forced the water upwards instead of onwards in its original stream. Which would mean that the flash of gold and red under the pillar was not her imagination but…

"Oh, Spirits."

Katara rushed forward at once, shoes clattering noisily on the ground as she flung herself down beside the pillar. Whilst one hand pushed uselessly against the rock the other shakily uncorked her water skin.

"Katara…" His voice was lost and rougher than usual.

"Zuko, help! If we can just get this off her I can…"

"Katara."

"Help me! I have water! There's water here! I can-"

Two hands enclosed on her shoulders and jerked her around so she was staring at too-old gold eyes and not a glimpse of a broken body. "Katara, she's dead. There's nothing you can do." Zuko took three deep breaths. "Azula is dead."

The hand that had still been tugging urgently at her water skin dropped pathetically to her lap. Unknowingly, she began to tremble, only realizing the shuddered breathing was hers when Zuko's face became blurry because of the tears in her eyes. Zuko said nothing, did nothing and showed nothing on his face. He was a stoic statue – the only pillar of stone left standing in that courtyard.

"Zuko I'm… I never meant for this to happen." She gazed deeply into his eyes and begged him to believe her. It was her fault, but not intentionally.

"I know," he replied quietly. Finally his hands dropped from her shoulders. She missed their warm weight instantly. "Me neither." Another deep breath and the Firebender rose, turning his back on the sight and instead facing the blood-red sky. This time it was he who placed both hands around his mouth. "Appa! Aaaapppaaaa!"

Katara rose too, walking past him until she stood in the middle of the courtyard. Somehow, the stones seemed to give off warmth. She tried not to think of the sickly twisted arm buried under rock behind her. "Appa! Appa! _Appa!_"

Both benders waited, holding their breath and straining their ears. Nothing happened; deathly silence was all that greeted them. Katara took up calling him again, screaming until her throat was hoarse and the tears began dripping down her cheeks. Her heart was threatening to break, and she had little to keep it from simply shattering.

"Appa! _APPA! _Please! Oh, Spirits, please! He can't be dead!" she sobbed. "He can't be! Aang will-"

She broke off with a gasp as the reality slapped her through the face. It was a possibility that Aang would not care if the bison were alive or not: dead people did not feel for the dead. The crushing feeling in her chest increased and her hands rose to hide her face; a childish hope that if she could not see the world then perhaps everything would just make itself okay again. There was a great noise behind her and she whirled around to face it, cheeks still streaked and heart hammering wildly.

Zuko had taken a great piece of metal – presumably what had once been the grate – and had melted it so it formed a long pole. He had then stuck it under the pillar that trapped the princess to the floor and had placed another boulder beneath it. The Firebender was using his lever to painstakingly free his sister. Without clearly deciding to do it, Katara moved to his side and, while he painfully held the pillar a few inches off the ground, she grabbed Azula and pulled her free. Katara registered the blood on her hands and could not look at the princess properly. Nausea and sadness rolled in her stomach and she scooted away, sobbing and washing her hands fervently.

Zuko, however, moved closer. His steps were halting, but it took her a while to realize it was not because of fear or horror or even grief. The physical task of moving the pillar had almost been too much for him in his state, and the grimaces on his face drove fresh wounds into Katara's soul. He almost fell beside his sister and then painfully, slowly, removed his tattered shirt and wrapped her in it. Then he slipped one hand behind her back and one behind her knees and attempted to lift her. He only succeeded when Katara grabbed her other side. Wordlessly the two carried the girl – because, really, that's all she was – to what once appeared to be an altar of some sort. Still as silent as the rock around him, Zuko arranged her limbs until she looked as though she could be sleeping. Then he gestured to Katara to move away. She obeyed at once, moving too loudly to catch what he whispered over his sister. It sounded like a prayer, ancient and sad. And then Zuko set her alight.

Moving away from the burning body, the Firebender wrapped an arm around his torso. He watched the fire only until it consumed the entire corpse before he turned completely away and staggered back to the courtyard. Katara followed at a distance, bewildered and a little horrified at the actions but realizing quickly that in a nation of fire it was probably deemed the highest honour to return somebody to his own element at death. Back in the courtyard Zuko sagged against a pillar and looked despondently at the sky. He moved only to lower his arm whilst Katara un-bandaged, healed and re-bandaged him. Neither of them spoke the entire time. No human or animal came: the silence remained absolute.

"We need to go and find the others," Zuko suddenly said. "The airship base is directly to see from a point not too far from here. We can figure out how to cross the sea when we get there."

Katara did not comment, but instead waited for him to straighten and then lead the way from the palace. Zuko did not look back once and Katara, who had left home herself, understood why. Zuko did not lead them to the town, but instead headed directly for what appeared to be the side of a small and dormant volcano. The terrain was obviously wild, but was devoid of the vegetation Katara was used to seeing in the Earth Kingdom. Everything looked barren and dead, and she was forced to wonder if it had looked that bad the previous day.

"There's a sort of pass cut into the sides of the volcano," Zuko explained suddenly. "It was first created as a secret vantage point for soldiers to keep watch from – you can see the whole capitol from up there. But as time went on it became the easiest way to cut from the capitol to the shore without going through any of the towns or using the proper roads."

There was something dark about his tone that made Katara's brow furrow. "But if it's not a proper road then why…?"

"To transport things you don't want people to see. Illegal goods. Immigrants." And then, so quietly she was sure she'd imagined it, "Banished princes." He cleared his throat. "It's also quicker, if you want to get to the point we're heading to. Much quicker."

Again silence fell over them as the path they chose became steeper. Every now and then Zuko would veer to the right or left even though every part of the ground before them looked the same to her. And then, suddenly, she found herself standing on a crude road, cut into the mountain and hidden expertly from sight until you were standing on it. Zuko suddenly let out a noise she had never heard before, and it was so startling and so frightening that she braced herself before turning. He was staring back the way they had come with an unreadable yet tortured expression on his face. Katara turned too and felt the wind knocked out of her at once.

Below them stretched the Fire Nation capitol. It was completely destroyed; every building reduced to heaps of rubble at varying heights. There was no movement at all and the silence that drifted up from it on the air lamented of death and unquenchable sorrow. This time she could not stop herself: she reached out and grasped Zuko's shoulder, trying to instill some positive emotion in him and tell him he was not alone. He jerked under her touch, but it was more a motion of surprise than anything else. Before she could even attempt to say anything, the light around them changed. Katara's eyes flicked to the horizon just long enough to watch Sozin's Comet disappear, the sky bleaching to the normal black of night in its wake. Zuko seemed to sag beneath her hand.

"Let's go." It was barely above a whisper.

The going was tough, especially in the dark, but neither of them halted. Now that they were away from the immediate horrors of the fallen capitol, images of what Aang, Sokka, Suki and Toph _could _look like skipped happily through their minds, running havoc and causing their panting to be from more than just physical exertion. Katara did not look at Zuko, just in case he wanted to cry; she would not strip him of that dignity too. Finally, however, the burning need to have somebody understand her revelation drove her to break the silence. It was a revelation that had hit her the moment she had left the bunker and a revelation that had grown in strength until it was almost overwhelming her by the time she had gazed out upon the ravished capitol. And if she didn't tell somebody, it would burn her from the inside.

"We've lost the war," she told Zuko quietly.

He looked at her sharply. "You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do."

"Aang is a strong kid. He could still be alive," Zuko insisted, wondering when _he'd _become _her _optimist.

"It doesn't matter. Don't you see? It doesn't matter if Ozai is dead and Aang is alive. Even if Aang did beat him, we've still _lost_. We had to win the war so that the world would be at peace and _safe_ again. You saw the capitol. That is _not_ safe." Her voice broke. "Even if Aang beat Ozai, we still lost the war. Too much is destroyed for us to have won _anything_."

She expected Zuko to remain silent. She didn't really need him to say anything; she just needed to get the crushing pain of known defeat off her chest. But he surprised her by answering.

"Nobody ever wins when violence is present." She looked at him and he gave her a very painful attempt at a smile, the expression ghostly and morbid in the meager light cast by the flame in his palm. "Uncle Iroh. He spoke from experience."

"I'm so sorry, Zuko." _About your home. Your people. Your life. Your family. _

One tired hand rubbed his unmarked cheek. "Yeah."

They descended back into quiet, but somehow it was no longer painful. Before, the silence had pressed down on her until she felt she couldn't breathe because of the horror and worry and general feeling that she was alone in the world. But now there was a thin and unexplainable thread that linked her to Zuko, and the knowledge that there was a breathing, thinking, _feeling _person right beside her made the quiet bearable. Katara did not even feel the need to ask Zuko how he knew where they were going – the so-called path was invisible to her eyes and every rock she tripped over seemed exactly the same. The Firebender did not falter for a moment, and she used the unwavering image of him as her beacon, even when her legs felt numb from bruises and she was ready to fall down in a bundle right there on the rough ground and sleep.

Finally, when the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon again, Katara heard the sound of the ocean. The crashing waves relaxed her somewhat, and she found she suddenly had a second wind. Zuko seemed to pick up speed too, and she realized after a while that he must be drawing energy from the sun. For reasons unknown, this caused a smile to curve at her lips. By the time they began to descend toward the shore, Zuko's flame was not needed to see any more. The Firebender altered their course suddenly, turning to the east sharply and continuing in a straight line down the side of the mountain, ignoring the brambles and rocks as though they were nothing. Katara did not ask, but she filed away the strange alteration for later probing. Right then she was just too tired.

The sun escaped the hold of the horizon in a dazzling arc that seemed to instantly wake the world. Both benders turned almost automatically to watch it rise for a bit, enthralled by the blatant image of both life and destruction in one. Katara made the mistake of leaning against a large boulder to watch the sun; as soon as she'd half sat down, her body almost refused to rise again. It would be so nice for her just to curl up in the warm sun and _sleep_…

With a lot of effort, the Waterbender pushed herself to her feet again, thinking longingly of sleeping bags or even a soft piece of grass she could lie down on. She turned to tell Zuko they should keep moving immediately or else they'd never be able to shake off sleep, only to find him practically draped over a rock and as pale as a ghost. She wanted to kick herself for forgetting and kill him for pushing himself so much. Huffing in annoyance, she whipped out her water and advanced on him with a no-nonsense glare that killed his protests before they could be voiced.

"You're only human," she snapped at him. "You can only take so much. Next time, _tell _me."

He said nothing, and she made a mental note to insist to give him a checkup every hour. But a few minutes later, when they rounded a mound and came face-to-face with the sea, all ideas on how to turn Zuko into an obedient patient were driven from her mind. And it was not because she was too full of ecstasy to finally be facing the raw power of her element. Instead, it was because of the objects the tide had washed onto the shore.

If Katara had actually eaten something in the past day or so, she would probably have lost it behind a bush at the sight and the smell. Lying at random intervals along the shoreline were the bodies of armoured Fire Nation soldiers. Already, the smell of them was almost overwhelming. In shock, Katara's eyes were drawn to the water, where more bodies could be seen half floating and half sinking because of their heavy armour.

"Oh, spirits."

Zuko didn't make a sound.

"What…?" She answered her own question in her head – apparently the earthquake (or whatever it was) had spread across the sea as well. Fire Nation forces not part of the navy and who were wearing heavy armour… They hadn't stood a chance. "What were they doing in the water?" she asked instead, her voice rising slightly. "They must have been in the water already to… So what were they all doing in the water?"

Her companion did not answer her, but he finally spoke. "Is there… Any chance at all that… that any of them…?"

She felt her heart clench and threaten to break. "No. I'm so sorry."

He took a deep breath, the inhale shaky and the exhale more so. "We have to get to the island." Trying to ignore the many corpses, Zuko searched about the beach. His frown deepened. "Damn. I was hoping somebody would have left a boat around here…" He fisted both his hands in his hair roughly. "I never _plan _anything, do I?"

"Zuko, relax. Hey." Without thinking, she reached up and gently released his grip. "This part is easy, as long as the island is pretty close."

"It's more-or-less right across from this point. We'll be able to see it a few meters in. But it's far too far to swim."

"Zuko." For the first time since Aang had disappeared, Katara nearly felt like laughing. "Which element do I bend?"

He blinked at her, completely thrown off guard. Then his cheeks pinked. "Right."

With a small smile she walked to the water's edge, feeling slightly guilty when she held her breath against the smell. With one deft movement she had frozen some of the water into a block of ice. Holding the vessel steady, she leapt aboard gracefully and then turned to Zuko. He followed her example, jumping and landing as gracefully as she had, to her slight surprise. When she was sure he was on, she began to bend the water around them, sending them out toward the middle of the ocean. She was so focused on gaining speed that she only registered that Zuko had been bending too when the unmistakable smell of burning reached her nostrils. She didn't have to turn to know what on the beach was burning.

"Do you burn all your dead?" she asked quietly as they sped through the ocean to the rhythm of her hands.

"Usually it's only royalty or those who have earned a great honour." He paused for a while before adding softly, "None of them deserved or wanted to die. As much as it defies etiquette and social law to burn them I… I couldn't leave them to the animals."

"No, of course not," she answered gently, because his voice had been almost pleading, as though trying to explain why he'd done an ugly and underhanded deed.

It was barely noon by the time they reached the airship base, but to Katara it seemed as though a week had passed since she'd had sleep. Every one of her limbs ached and her eyes had taken to drooping shut every few moments. When her feet touched soil, however, fear and adrenalin woke her up. Silently, the two benders skittered around the island, keeping an eye out for any living soul or any sign of an airship. They saw nothing except rock and sparse vegetation. Eventually, they stumbled across what must have once been the command center and supply store for the base. The once small and probably quickly built building was reduced to little more than pebbles and dust.

"There's nobody here," Zuko told her, and she knew he meant 'nobody alive'.

"Okay." She ran her fingers through her ratty hair in sleep-deprived befuddlement. "Okay, so the airships launched, then. So the others must have stowed away on one. So either they made it to the Earth Kingdom or they crash landed on an island nearby or…" But she could not finish the sentence. The image of the floating bodies made nausea roll through her sharply. "So then we search the islands first."

"We will. Later."

She stared at him. "What?"

Sensing a fight, Zuko straightened. "You need sleep, Katara. Neither of us will get much further without collapsing."

"You want me to just… lie down and _sleep_?"

"You're not going to be of any use to them like this," he snapped at her.

"This is my _family_ we're talking about! They're all members of my _family_! What if they're hurt and dying and they need to be healed, huh? How can you be so _selfish_?"

"You think I don't care about them like you do? You think I'm not worried?" Zuko snarled right back, hands curling into fists.

"I think you don't have a _clue _what it's like to be part of something like that because your family is either evil, dead or betrayed _by you_." Zuko froze. "Fine. Stay here. _Sleep_. Do whatever the hell you want, Zuko. _I'm _going to look for them. Good luck getting off here yourself."

The Waterbender turned on her heel and half ran away, tears of rage slipping down her cheeks as she went. Reaching the shore she furiously made another ice slab and leapt on it so hard she nearly slipped off. She'd gotten about a meter out to sea when her vessel bumped into a body floating past. She tried to maneuver around it, but her arms had begun to shake from fatigue and her movements were sluggish so all she ended up doing was ramming the poor man again and again.

Katara burst into tears, curling her legs to her chest and sobbing into her knees. She cried because of horror and sadness and guilt and frustration and exhaustion and the notion that _this wasn't right_ – how had it all turned to this? She returned to the shore still sniffling and padded her way back to the fallen structure in pure misery. Zuko had packed some stones to form a wall that would block out the sun and give him shade while he slept. When she reached him, he was already laying down beside the wall, eyes closed but body far too tense to be asleep.

"Zuko?" She was whispering. "I'm… I'm s…sorry."

"The ground is soft here," was her only reply.

Rubbing her cheeks and leaving grubby stains like she had as a little girl, Katara curled up on the ground beside him. Zuko did not shift, but his breathing evened out and his shoulders relaxed. For a long time she watched the rise and fall of his bare, bandaged chest, tired but unable to fall asleep. Finally, when she was sure he was sleeping, she slipped closer to him and then held her breath. He didn't move. She moved closer and closer still until she was right beside him, her body squished up against his as though they shared limbs. When she placed her head on his chest, his heartbeat thudded through her brain, relaxing her mind and allowing her to finally start drifting off to sleep. She was sure he wouldn't like the contact at all, but she needed it. She needed to know he was alive and right beside her, like she'd needed to sleep in Sokka's sleeping bag when they were younger and some times during her journey when she'd been especially sad or lonely. She needed to know she was safe.

Cuddling into Zuko with a sigh, she told herself she'd wake up before he did so he'd never find her in this position. As she drifted off, Zuko subconsciously curled his arm around her protectively, offering the comfort that she so needed right then.

* * *

><p><strong>!Major note! <strong>I took so much artistic liberty here it's not even funny. Master Piandao tells Sokka that the island on which the airship base is situated is "just off the coast of the Earth Kingdom". If you look at the map of the Avatar universe (found in the opening sequence, of course) there's a part of the "main" Fire Nation that is close to the jutting out bit of the Earth Kingdom on the far left of its mass. I'm making it so that that's where the island is and that it's just too small to show up on the map at that scale. And I'm taking further liberty to assume that the capitol is close to that point, making their journey possible. I also took that convenient little blackout between Aang putting out all the fires and Sokka, Suki and Toph arriving to signify a passing of time. Otherwise Zuko and Katara would watch the comet pass whilst hollering for Appa, or something less dramatic like that ;)

If somebody has inside information that proves this wrong… I'd rather you not tell me because then my plans will be buggered xD Just kidding. If anybody has a problem with this, _please _let me know so I can fix it. Kay? Thanks. =]


	4. Chapter Three

**AN: **So. It's been a while. And that there is the understatement of the year. I'm so sorry this took forever to come; uni and life just kept kicking my ass so hard I never had any real chance to write. And I don't think updates will come any quicker from now on, either, since my vacation ends in two days.

I realize that the plot is going very slowly, and I apologise for that. This fic was born to be an exploration piece, and the biggest thing I wanted to explore was, of course, a less-than-perfect ending to the war. That's why the plot may seem to be crawling. In reality, this doesn't have much of an epic plot at all and it's only going to have six chapters.

That means a lot of OOC-ness and a lot of slow moving plot and quite possibly very long gaps between updates. To those who stay with it despite all this… words cannot describe how grateful and honoured I am. Those who choose to opt out: I'll see you next time, maybe =]

**Disclaimer**: Avatar is not mine. I do not own any of its writers, either, which is why I can spew out artistic liberty like a very drunk guy.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three <strong>

Katara awoke to find herself lying in darkness alone. Instantly she sat up, grateful that the moon was waxing and thus provided enough light to see at least a little bit of what was going on. The area around her was quiet, just as everything always seemed to be post-calamity. The Waterbender rose to her feet swiftly, trying to ignore the way her heart was pounding somewhere uncomfortably close to her mouth. How late was it? How could she sleep through Zuko standing up? Where _was _he?

"Zuko?" She hated the little waver in her voice.

"I'm here," a voice called quietly.

Relief turned her bones to blasting jelly. Sighing, she padded carefully over to where she'd heard him call from. She found him kneeled in the rock, pulling out strands of the strange plant that grew sparsely on the island. She folded her arms, a little irritated that he'd just up and left her like that.

"What are you _doing_?"

If he picked up the sullen, accusatory note in her voice he didn't show it. "Getting fuel for a fire. So we can catch some fish and actually eat something."

Shame squirmed in her stomach and tinted her cheeks pink. "You should have woken me up. I would have helped you."

"You're going to be catching and cooking," he told her, rising with his slightly pathetic armful of plants. "And, besides, I…" He shifted. "You looked like you needed the rest."

It was only then, when faced with his awkwardness, that she remembered how she'd fallen asleep. Heat flooded through her body and she suddenly wanted the rock to open up and swallow her whole. What was she, four? Mature women did not go and cuddle with somebody because they were a little scared! She shifted away from him awkwardly, glad he seemed to be avoiding her gaze as much as she was avoiding his.

"So. Fish. Right. I'll… I'll go do that, then."

Clearing her throat uneasily, she then slipped to the shoreline and immersed herself with catching them food, effectively pushing all mortifying images of Zuko waking up to find her practically on top of him out of her head. It took her a little while to catch a fish of satisfactory size, but once she'd gently sent its spirit to the Spirit World, Katara returned to the decimated building with pride in her step. Zuko waited for her with fire in his palm and the plants stacked in a neat pile. She sat beside him and gave him a confused look as he shifted closer with his flame.

"They're not going to burn for very long," he explained, "so I'm only going to light them when we're ready to cook the fish."

Somehow, the way he'd phrased that sentence – the way he'd said 'we' instead of 'you' – made Katara's insides warm up in soft pleasure. She didn't mind cooking for the Gaang; she was good at it and frankly didn't trust anybody else's cooking. But never before had anybody invested an equal amount of effort and energy into it as her. On that night, she was not cooking for him; they were cooking together. It made her feel like there was a piece of home there with her, and peace descended in her heart.

It was only when she was done washing one of the larger stones from the building and laying the fish across it that she realized she had no knife. She was about to point this out to Zuko when he produced one without a word. Curiously, she looked over the weapon and traced the inscription on the blade.

"'Never give up without a fight'?"

"Uncle gave it to me, many years ago. He got it when he was leading the siege on Ba Sing Se."

The underlying tone in Zuko's voice stopped her from asking any more questions. Instead, she simply prepared the fish, telling Zuko when to light the fire. The plants burnt quicker than even Zuko expected, but the fish was still cooked enough for their ravenous stomachs to endure. After their little supper Katara firmly insisted that Zuko get healed again. The wound was still raw and – she suspected – painful, but it knit together nicely under her fingers and she estimated that he would be pain-free in another three days or so. Another half-argument arose at what they were going to do next: Zuko insisted it was pure foolishness to go and do anything in the dark. Finally, Katara agreed, and although she thought she'd struggle to fall asleep she was out mere minutes after lying down.

The second time she awoke on the island, it was to find herself face-to-face with Zuko. Somehow, in her sleep, she'd scooted over to him and had, once again, practically put herself on top of him. This time, however, she was lucky: Zuko was still asleep when she awoke. For a long while she studied the Firebender as the dawn broke around them. Lying on his left side, with his scar hidden and his entire body relaxed he looked… vulnerable and younger, somehow. And then she remembered Sokka mentioning that it was nice to have a guy roughly his age around, back when Zuko and he had just returned from The Boiling Rock and she was still forcing herself to hate him. Sokka's age. Spirits, he _was _young…

As the sun rose over the horizon he stirred, prompting her to immediately shift away from him and then wonder why she hadn't moved as soon as she awoke.

They said good morning to each other without words and it was Katara who broke the silence. "So, now what do we do?"

For a moment, Zuko contemplated. "Ba Sing Se. It's still our best bet, still the place we're most likely to find everybody and figure out what happened." She nodded, but it was hesitant. He noticed, and sighed. "What?"

"Nothing." She contradicted her statement a split second later. "It's just… Aang very rarely runs away. But when something scares him enough to make him run he runs for a place he feels safe. A home. Ba Sing Se today is just another war zone. If that… earthquake thing… happened while he was facing Ozai, he wouldn't run straight into another battle. He'd want to go home."

"The Western Air Temple?"

"I _think _so. It's worth a try, right? I mean, we can get there, right?"

For a long moment he just looked at her, seemingly searching for something. Her heart leapt in relief when he nodded. "Yeah, we can get there. I know the path."

She gave him a confused look but he was already moving, rising stiffly and heading towards the shore. It took her a few seconds to comprehend his sudden movements and she had to scramble to catch up with him, still not quite used to his silent, sudden way of making decisions. It was only when she was bending them across the waves that she took in the uncomfortable look on his face and realized he'd been hoping to pull off that _stupid _male 'ignore the injury' thing again. She called him out on it and another argument ensued. This one died out quickly, though, as they reached the shore and found the remains of their clumsy burial of the previous day. After another healing session wherein neither of them dared look at the shore Katara let Zuko lead the way. The two of them climbed partially up the side of the mountain again, retracing their steps up until they once again reached the path that Zuko had deviated from so strongly on their trip down. The Firebender led her along the path this time, seemingly oblivious to the curious glances she was giving him.

"Where are we going?"

He frowned at her. "To the Western Air Temple. The path I know starts from the village."

Katara looked around her and saw nothing but dead mountain and thorny bush. "What village?" Zuko rolled his eyes in frustration and just carried on walking. Katara's irritation peaked. "Zuko! What village?"

The path cut through a miniature tunnel and the sun was completely blotted out in an instant. Katara shivered and moved closer to her companion. The Firebender didn't raise his hand to create a flame but before she could ask him to do it – the rock surrounding her was cold and it smelt very funny – light once more washed over her. And Zuko was once again stopped in his tracks.

"The village that used to be here," he answered belatedly.

Another scene of destruction met Katara's eyes. Every building had been turned into a collapsed pile of rock and the silence of the dead hung around the place with the soot. The only thing still left intact was a merchant's cart that had somehow been run halfway into the mouth of the tunnel. Bits of the rock had crumbled into it and had squashed the wares brutally, leaving a sticky orange mess all over the wood and the suspicious bundle of cloth on the end. Instinctively, Katara reached for the bundle only to have her wrists caught tightly in Zuko's hands. She jumped at the sudden contact, heart hammering as she whirled to face him.

"Don't," he told her softly. "You can't do anything. Don't."

Her eyes returned to the bundle and she made out the form of a tiny human foot. At once her eyes closed and she staggered away, tears forming and choking her as she tried not to vomit. Zuko did not let go of her wrists, using his grip to keep her on her feet even as she wished to just be swallowed by the earth. This was wrong. This was all so wrong. They were supposed to be having a victory party today, not living out a sick nightmare. This is what they were supposed to have stopped. When she finally got her breath back Zuko let go of her wrists and started for the village.

"You can wait here," he offered over his shoulder, unable to turn and meet her eyes.

She swallowed, wondering what it felt like for him to see s many of his own people dead when to her it was already almost too much. The thought of seeing another corpse nearly outdid her on the spot. Gritting her teeth, she pushed it away and followed the Firebender. She was the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. She was a Master. She would do what had to be done.

Neither of the teens looked left or right as they moved through the silent, destroyed streets. Once more Zuko seemed to know the way; his steps were sure and unwavering. He pulled them to a stop outside a pile of rubble that, to her, seemed no different from the rest. For a moment he hesitated, eyes sweeping the mass, before he took four precise steps to the right and began to shift the rock. Confused, Katara followed his lead, shifting chunks of brick until the door to a cellar came into view. Zuko created a tiny flame on his thumb and stuck it through a hole on the cellar door's lid. A click sounded and the Firebender pulled the door open.

"Okay, what is going on." Katara finally couldn't keep quiet any more. "Where are we? What is this place? How do you know how to get into somebody else's cellar?"

Zuko sighed heavily but straightened up and faced her. For a moment he seemed unsure of where to start, then the words just blurted out in a slightly confusing stream. "My uncle requested to be in charge of my quest to find the Avatar. He brought me here and sought out Captain Jee, whom he knew from his army days. Jee lived here," Zuko gestured to the ruin of the house, "and he lived alone. Uncle offered him a chance to get out of the nation, leave it all behind, travel, _do _something… We stayed here while Jee found the rest of what would later be my crew; a small group of people just like him who had nothing here and so nothing to lose. Then we set sail."

Silence followed this information. Zuko's stare turned challenging and defensive. Katara shook her head to try and quell the surprise. "This is where your hunt for Aang began?" Zuko nodded stiffly. The Waterbender's eyes traveled to the mass of rubble and the gaping mouth of the cellar. "Oh."

Released from his duty to give information, Zuko entered the cellar and came up a while later carrying to satchels that were filled to bursting. Katara opened her mouth to voice her hesitance about stealing, only to stop the words before they left. Nobody here would miss whatever they took, that was for sure. Zuko, perceptive as he was when on edge, noticed her open mouth and frowned.

"What?" he demanded. She stared at him mutely, being burned by the defensiveness in his eyes. "_What_?"

"So everybody who went with you to find Aang went because they had nothing at all to keep them here?"

The question came out of nowhere; flew from the back of her mind to her tongue without her giving it permission. It surprised her as much as it did Zuko. His frown deepened, but he answered her anyway.

"Yes."

"So then…" She hesitated, realizing she was skating on thin ice. But she could not stop now that she'd started. "So then what made you go? What was it that made you so hungry to catch the Avatar that you'd go out on a seemingly futile journey that led to you getting banished from your own country?"

For a moment, all the Firebender registered was pure surprise and incomprehension. He stared at her wide, innocent eyes and things clicked into place. She thought he'd only gotten banished _after _he'd gone after Aang. She thought his banishment was somehow a consequence of chasing the Avatar. She thought he'd _chosen _to go. His mouth felt dry, and the words to correct her wouldn't come. The image of him telling her what had actually happened made his entire body freeze. Katara suddenly blushed, chewing on her lip.

"Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just…"

"I know you didn't." It didn't change anything, though. "Come on."

Sharply he turned and marched away from her, her questions, those eyes that were too innocent to hate for asking _that _question of him, from the memories, from the dead, from having to face his past nightmare and his present one all in one blow. He could hear her following him quietly but he did not turn to look at her. Instead, he kept his eyes on the path that he remembered all too well, even though his uncle and him had traveled it only once and had used it going the opposite direction. Some journeys you just couldn't forget.

It was when his feet met the worn ground that the villagers had used as a path that the irony hit him: once again, he was setting off from that village to go and find the Avatar. Destiny was a bitch, sometimes.

The silence between them came and went in erratic waves. Sometimes they'd walk side-by-side talking about things so random Katara often had to remind herself that it was really sullen, silent _Zuko _that she was talking to. Other times they would walk a little apart, lost in their own fears and worries. Sometimes fatigue would keep their mouths closed, but then they'd get a second wind and the conversation would start again, light and seemingly meaningless but somehow, to them, the lifeline to sanity. The two rested only twice the whole day, flopping down where they stood as the land offered no vegetation for comfort anyway. Katara was worried about Zuko's wound even though he continually brushed her off about it. Eventually she stopped asking and just resolved for paying closer attention so she would see when or if it got too much for him.

At sunset their luck improved and they found a small oasis that Zuko explained was a man-made watering hole for farmers' animals. The hole was not big but the water was clean and some plants had managed to survive around the oval that they could sleep on. Zuko made a fire and Katara prepared some of the dried meat in their packs into a stew. It wasn't the best thing they'd ever eaten, but it was edible and they were both hungry and exhausted.

The night was so silent around them that they both nearly jumped out of their skins at the sudden, loud splash. At once Katara raised her arms, fingers tingling as the water in the dam came under her command. She was about to sweep everything in the water to the side when Zuko yelled at her to stop.

"It's okay! Don't hurt it!"

Relieved, she let her arms sag. Her heart was hammering as she peered at the water. "What is it?"

Zuko extended a palm of fire outwards and Katara was finally able to glimpse a little shape floating innocently on the surface of the water. "Turtleduck."

It was the first living thing they'd seen besides each other and the fish in almost three days. Both of them watched its progress in slightly awed silence, almost scared that if they made too much noise it would disappear and leave them alone again.

"I've never heard of a Turtleduck," Katara confessed after a while.

"They're indigenous to the Fire Nation." Zuko sat back down again and finished his meal. "They were almost extinct a few years ago until the sanctuary was started where they could breed in peace."

"There's a sanctuary for birds in the Fire Nation?"

The question was voiced before she could stop it; the notion that the Fire Nation had animal sanctuaries was almost akin to her being told Ozai still slept with a doll for comfort. But even as she asked it guilt ate up at her insides. It was just so difficult, sometimes, to remember that the Fire Nation itself wasn't evil. It was so much easier to revert back to the thinking of her younger years; that every person with those odd gold eyes was the enemy. Luckily, Zuko seemed too preoccupied to notice and take offence to her prejudice.

"Yeah. It's in the palace gardens, actually."

Katara's eyebrows shot up. "How'd that happen? General Iroh?"

Zuko shook his head. "My mom started it. She loved Turtleducks."

His gaze had softened as he spoke, and hers followed suit. It was the first time since he'd spoken about his mother since they'd both been trapped underneath Ba Sing Se. Curiosity on almost a desperate level crawled up in her and she only just managed to stop himself from asking him what had happened. He had so many secrets. Every time she thought she knew him, he turned around and handed her more questions whilst simultaneously blowing up all her theories. Feeling her gaze he turned away from the Turtleduck to face her.

"Your mom sounds like an amazing person," she told him quietly.

He'd never know, but that sentence was a realization on her part. There had always been the nagging thought that anybody crazy enough to marry Ozai had to be just a bit like him. The look in Zuko's eyes as he spoke about her and at her compliment banished that thought forever. And she was insanely, insanely glad that he'd had at least one parent who had loved him as he'd deserved.

"She was," he agreed. Then, inexplicably, he stiffened. "She is?" She frowned at his hesitant half-question and he shifted a little as though embarrassed. "I…"

"Zuko. You can tell me. You know that, right?" Still he hesitated. "Besides, it's only fair, really. You know practically my whole life story and I honestly don't know a thing about you."

He shut his eyes and spoke to the darkness. "On the day of the eclipse I went to my… to Ozai. I told him I was going to go and join the Avatar, teach him Firebending and help him to win the war. To get me to stay until his bending came back so he could attack me, Ozai said… He said… He said my mother might still be alive."

In the dead silence, Zuko opened his eyes and looked at Katara again. She'd never seen him that lost before. His gaze dropped. "Ozai lies, though. He always lies. I don't know… I mean…"

"Zuko." She made her tone as gentle as she possibly could. "Is there any chance that he's _not _lying? That's she's still out there?" The Firebender's forehead furrowed and she shook her head. "No, don't think about it. Just yes or no: is there any hope she's still out there?"

"Yes." He looked at her and she could tell he was fighting the desire to hope with everything in him. She wondered how many times he'd been disappointed to make him that adverse to faith.

"Then we'll find her," Katara told him simply. "Yes, 'we'. I swear to you right now that when this is all over I am going to help you find your mom. I swear it."

"Thank you, Katara." There was trust in his eyes, and she smiled.

From then on their luck seemed to improve a little. They woke to a day that was slightly more overcast, saving them from the direct glare from the sun. After a few hours of walking they stumbled on a ruined orchard and gorged themselves on Moon Peaches until Katara was sure she would carry the taste around with her forever. Even their conviction that they were lost only lasted about half an hour before Zuko recognized the path once more and continued to lead them inland. Conversation flowed even easier than the previous day and Katara amused herself and Zuko by recounting the many adventures her people had taken part in during the winter storms when they could not leave their igloos. Zuko was still a lot more hesitant than her to give away personal details, but he did tell her some stories of his mother and his childhood. The picture he painted was one of a good life, but there was just something in the background that remained sinister in Katara's head; she was sure he was skipping over some parts to make things seem rosier than they actually were. She didn't press him on it; he knew she was there if he wanted to talk.

As the sun was setting their luck seemed to forsake them on the spot.

At first they'd thought the mound to be a hill or a pile of rocks. As they got closer, however, the form kept morphing into something different. Suddenly the hill transformed into the shape of a fallen airship. Without a word, both of them ran towards it. Katara was praying harder than she ever had in her life, begging the spirits that she would not find her brother in the wreckage. A few feet off the smell hit them and Katara wanted to cry. She wondered if she'd ever be able to get the stench of dead bodies out of her head after this.

"Do you see…?" She couldn't complete the question.

"No. They look… they all look like Earth Kingdom soldiers. Look at their uniforms."

"Those over there aren't wearing them, though. They look like…" Horror flooded the pit of her stomach as the deep blue robes she knew too well came into view. Mixed among the soldiers of the Earth Kingdom were fallen members of the White Lotus. "How did they get here? What are they _doing_ here? In an airship? I don't-"

Air and words were slammed out of her as her eyes fell upon another fallen form wearing dark blue robes. This form was male and stocky and he had his back towards her. All she could see was the white hair and topknot exactly like that of…

Beside her, Zuko stopped breathing.

"No," Katara whispered. "No, no, no. No, it's not. It can't be. _No_."

The Firebender took lurching steps forward, his eyes wide and full of pure fear. He collapsed next to the form and then reached for it with shaking fingers. All the while Katara stood and tried to breathe and reasoned that the spirits could not be that cruel to one person. Zuko slumped and her heart nearly stopped.

"It's not Uncle," he told her.

"Oh, spirits. Oh… Oh my… Oh, _spirits_." She could have collapsed in relief.

"It's not Uncle," he repeated, but this time it sounded like he was trying to tell himself.

A shaky, choking noise sounded and it took her a while to realize Zuko was laughing in relief. He was still slumped over with his face turned away from her, almost bowed low on the ground as though in prayer. The humourless, breathless laughter continued, shaking his shoulders as he sat. And then, suddenly, the laughter changed somehow and it began to shake his shoulders in a different way. Understanding, Katara knelt beside him and placed both her hands on his shoulders. He tried to turn away but she gripped him and then pulled him forcefully towards her, wrapping his body in her arms. For a moment longer he struggled before he gripped her back, laying his forehead on her shoulder.

Katara thought of what she could have found; thought of the dead bodies of her brother, father or closest friends in the world and then about what was almost taken from the man in front of her. She shut her eyes, buried her face in Zuko's neck, and finally cried for what could be her future.

The sun set and they held one another as they sobbed.

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><p><strong>AN2: <strong> is still being screwy Email wise so I don't get told when I have a new review. So if you're still waiting for me to respond to you... You may want to send me a PM xD I love replying to reveiws personally but I honestly cannot remember what I've replied to and what I haven't. So apologies for that. In case anybody cares xD


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